


We're Not In Third Grade Anymore (But it's Christmas)

by chasingyellow



Series: Alone (Together) [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Dick is a Good Brother, Gen, He doesn't like it, Jason Todd experiencing emotionTM, Jason is confused, Jason is trying, Lazarus Pit, Lazarus Pit Madness, Light Angst, Nightwing - Freeform, Red Hood - Freeform, and Dick wants Jason to come home, but emotionally, hurt jason, it's the HOLIDAYS, send help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28441716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingyellow/pseuds/chasingyellow
Summary: Jason honestly should have suspected that Dick would want to talk sometime. He seemed to have remembered Goldie, at least, correctly.ORDick is sappy and Jason is sad
Series: Alone (Together) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083293
Comments: 6
Kudos: 109





	We're Not In Third Grade Anymore (But it's Christmas)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!  
> This story follows 'It Feels Like Christmas...' in main idea. The Batfam wants Jason home for Christmas. Jason doesn't want to remember, etc.  
> I know it's past Christmas, haha, but I started on this idea and I can't stop now XD.  
> Hope you all enjoy!

Of course it was Dick next. Jason shouldn’t have been surprised. 

He certainly didn’t  _ act  _ surprised. In fact, he ignored the Golden Boy as long as possible. 

It was during patrol, at first. Red Hood was in an alleyway whose name he couldn't remember, fighting a group of thugs he would’ve just shot in the head had Nightwing not dropped down from the building above. 

It wasn’t as though he decided to not kill the men in order to stay in the Bat family's good graces. 

No, the stupid, stupid idiot kept saving them. 

Everytime he fired off a perfectly aimed shot, every time he was preparing to bash out someone’s head, Nightwing would swoop in and  _ save  _ them. 

It was starting to get annoying. Annoying enough that Jason decided to call the moron out—before Jason started seeing green—and, hopefully, scare him away. 

“What are you doing here?” Jason bit out, firing off a shot and nearly clipping Nightwing in the shoulder as he pulled a thug out of the way. 

“Patrol.” Nightwing hollered back, slamming the man down to the ground in a non-lethal but effective, Bat-signature move. 

Jason felt a thrill of irritation at the smoothness of it, at the ease of it.  _ How was he so calm?  _ “You don’t even live here,” 

“It’s the holidays.” Nightwing answered, swiping the feet out from underneath the last man and then dropping to the ground to pin him. He took out a pair of cuffs and glanced up at Jason. “Can I call the police?” 

Jason was already strapping his gun back in the holster. All the men were either restrained, or barely lucid enough to walk in a straight line. One of them got a few paces away, trying to be discrete about it, but Jason ignored him. Nightwing had interfered. It was his job to clean up the crime scene now. 

Jason was going to go home and sleep. 

Or, maybe not  _ sleep.  _ Rest, maybe. Jason hadn’t been sleeping very well, lately. “I’m not your mom, Goldie.” Jason said as Dick finished binding the man and threw a wingding of some sort— _ did he actually call them that? _ —at the man that had been attempting to escape. He toppled and Nightwing got to his feet and bound him. He didn’t look over and Jason wondered if his comment had dug deeper than he intended. He tried to remember…

What had happened to Dick’s mom anyway?  _ Definitely dead, but… _

It didn’t matter, Jason reminded himself abruptly. He didn’t care. 

Why would he? Dick was a Bat. 

He wasn’t like Jason remembered. 

In the few memories that Jason had recalled of Dick, he’d remembered him as a brother. 

They weren’t exactly brothers anymore. 

He didn’t care. He didn’t want to talk to Dick. Dick was lucky that Jason hadn’t shot him in the head. He still could. 

Nightwing was distracted, still talking to the Gotham City Police. Jason’s gun was still loaded. He just had to reach down, unstrap the gun from the holster. He just had to—

_ Breathe, Jason.  _

He couldn’t kill Nightwing. Nightwing was a hero. And yeah, sure, maybe Jason  _ wasn’t one,  _ but he couldn’t kill him. He couldn’t kill a hero because—

_ Because _ . 

Maybe because he was a coward. Maybe because he couldn’t kill anyone that counted, that mattered. Maybe because—Jason didn’t know. 

He didn’t know a lot of things. 

Jason double-checked his gun in his holster, making sure that it was secure. Then he turned away, striding out of the alley. He’d reached the main street before the green mist that had been collecting in the edges of his vision started to fade. 

“Hey, wait!” 

Jason stiffened, felt his breath hiccup but he didn't stop walking. He can’t stop walking because that would be stupid. Then he’d have to talk, then he’d have to sort out whatever crap that Dick wanted him to try and remember. 

“Hood, wait!” 

A hand closed around his fist. 

Green welled up and closed in on Jason’s vision in a fraction of a second. His mind went blank. He barely felt himself whirl around, his fist  _ slam  _ into skin and bone. He barely felt blood on his fist. 

And then everything cleared and Jason was staring down at Dick who…

Who was sitting on his butt in the middle of the alleyway, clutching his face and looking up at Jason like he’d gone crazy. 

Well, he had.  _ Old news, Goldie.  _

Jason stumbled back a step, vision tilting sickeningly. He focused on breathing, on convincing himself that he’d meant to do that, that he’d mean to  _ punch his brother in the face  _ and that wasn’t just the Pit acting up and controlling his life again. 

_ Breathe, Jason.  _

“Jay? Are you alright?” Dick scrambled to his feet. One hand dropped away from his face and then the other revealing the split lip, the bruise already forming along his jaw. 

_ Jason had meant to do that. He was in control.  _

“Don’t touch me,” Jason bit out, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t really trembling. That was just his imagination. 

“Right. Sorry—sorry. That was stupid.” Dick wiped at the blood trickling down his chin. He stared at it for a moment. “That’s a nice hook, Jay,” he said after a moment, just as Jason remembered that he  _ did not  _ want to talk to this man. 

Jason turned again, ignoring his brother. 

_ Crap.  _ Ignoring Dick. 

Jason bit his lip, squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, trying to ignore the sound of footsteps following him. 

Dick didn’t say anything for a while. For some reason, Jason had remembered him being a talker. 

“Sorry I interrupted your patrol.” Dick said. 

Jason had jinxed himself. He was sure of it. He gritted his teeth, not answering. 

“I guess we’re even now, though. Right?” 

Jason didn’t answer that either. 

“Hey, Robin said you weren’t feeling good,” Dick said, after another minute and Jason groaned aloud.  _ Of course, he’d blabbed.  _ That’s what twelve-year-olds do. “Are you okay?” Dick waited for a response, partially because he was just an  _ idiot  _ and maybe because Jason inhaled like he was going to reply and then cut himself off before he could wreck his life all over again. 

He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. 

He wasn’t sure why he’d almost answered. He didn’t want Dick to know anything. 

He didn’t want Dick to know that he  _ had  _ eaten the pizza that Damian had brought. He didn’t want Dick to know that it had been a terrible idea after all because he’d puked it all back up after he’d woken up at 5 in the morning with a nightmare. He didn’t want Dick to know that he hadn’t been able to get off the bathroom for an hour after that because he felt like crying and he felt like  _ crap  _ and he’d been trying to convince himself that patrol would make him feel better. 

He wasn’t about to tell the Golden Boy that. 

“Ja—Er, Hood?” 

“ _What?_ ” It came out a lot louder, a lot more aggressive than he’d meant for it to be. But he grit his teeth, didn’t pause in his stride because _no. He was in control._

He meant to snap. He meant to punch Dick in the face. He was...He was getting better at controlling the Pit. 

Sort of. 

Kind of. 

Maybe. 

Jason’s next breath hitched in his chest. 

“Hood?” 

“Shut it, Goldie,” He snapped, trying to keep his thoughts straight. He was  _ so tired.  _

The footsteps stopped behind him. 

Something in his chest clenched. Maybe that was his heart. He wasn’t so sure if it’d been doing its job properly lately. 

“You know you can come home, right?” 

They both knew that was stupid. That it wasn’t true. Jason could hear it in his brother’s voice. 

“For Christmas?” 

Jason didn’t stop walking. Maybe Dick would just let him walk away. 

_ Didn’t he know he was making things worse?  _ They both knew it wasn’t true. They both knew that Bruce wouldn’t let him come home. He was a murderer. 

He was a  _ murderer.  _

Jason was thankful for his helmet for possibly the millionth time today. He wasn’t sure if he could trust himself to keep his face expressionless. To keep the emotion out of his voice. 

“Jason?” 

_ Home.  _

What would it be like to go home now? 

Horrible. He knew that. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he  _ knew  _ that. He was a criminal. He was a murderer. 

But that logic, those thoughts couldn’t push away that strange feeling. That longing. 

He wanted to go home. 

Things would feel right if he went home.  _ Life  _ would feel right if he went back home. 

No. 

No, Jason Todd would’ve been alright if he went home. Not him. Not whatever he was now. He couldn’t go home. He  _ knew  _ he couldn’t. 

_ Think, Jason. Breathe.  _

It felt like too much to do both at once. 

“Okay, okay,” The footsteps behind him started up again. “Well, can you just—” The footsteps sped up and suddenly Dick was jogging, running at him—

Convulsive fear swelled in his throat and he whirled around, snapping out his arm and snatching Dick’s wrist. 

They both froze: Dick with his arm extended, fist closed; Jason with a knuckle-white grip around his brother’s wrist, blocking his face. 

He hissed out a breath, mind racing, disjointed thoughts trying and failing to connect. Green wavered, threatening to take over. 

Dick exhaled. “Easy. It’s not...I’m just an idiot.” He tried to pull away his hand and it was a second before Jason’s fingers obeyed his brain and loosened their grip. Dick stumbled back a step at the sudden release but he recovered impossibly quickly, offering the hand to Jason again. 

Jason just stared at it this time. 

“Here. I just meant to give this to you.” 

Dick’s fingers unfurled, revealing a piece of paper. 

_ He really is an idiot,  _ was Jason’s first coherent thought. “What, are we in third grade?” Jason bit out, not making a move to take the  _ freaking note  _ that Dick wanted to give him. 

“Will you just take it?” Dick’s voice was strained, maybe because he was embarrassed— _ Jason  _ would be—maybe because he was actually dead serious. 

Neither of those were good options. 

Jason’s next breath had that uncomfortable rasp in it. 

_ Take it. Don’t take it. Take it. Don’t take it.  _

It was stupid. It was all incredibly, perfectly stupid because it didn’t really matter. It was probably some stupid note. Some  _ hey, I love you, bro  _ because Dick was sappy like that. At least, Jason thought he remembered him being sappy. 

It was hard to tell what Dick was thinking, with the stupid mask obscuring his eyes. Besides, the Golden Boy had always been good at hiding his emotions.

Right? 

Jason couldn’t remember and trying to sort out what he’d made up and what he actually could recall from his past was giving him a headache. 

“Jay, please?” 

Suddenly, that was the tipping point and Jason couldn’t handle it anymore. He couldn’t handle just staring at his brother— _ his brother _ —and feeling like he didn’t know him. He couldn’t handle trying to remember. He couldn’t handle being here. 

And he was  _ tired.  _

He took the piece of paper. 

Dick gave him a shaky smile. 

Jason didn’t open the note until he was locked in his own apartment, sitting on his bed, back up against the wall and body tense like he was barricading himself in. 

The note had one line of writing. 

Dick’s phone number sat there, glaring up at him, black ink like an unholy stain against the white of the paper. 

Two words, next to it, in handwriting Jason  _ knew  _ he remembered. 

_ Call me.  _

Jason Todd had nightmares that night. 

**Author's Note:**

> Voila!  
> Also, for those who have read 'Waitin' On the World to Change', this is the lil story of how Jason got Dick's phone number in the first place.  
> And the previous work in the series 'It Feels Like Christmas...' also has a reference! A pizza reference, of course ;) 
> 
> Hope y'all have an amazing day!  
> -a


End file.
